I can attribute those actions to any western pwer that has been involved in any conflict as other than a peacekeeper.

It’s called total war, invented in the 30’s so you should really be familiar with the implications by now

Mike said:
> “See Hitler, Mao, Stalin, etc. list above. Their plan was to wipe out a LOT of humans while enslaving the rest. That’s crazy. Or nutty. Or ‘just plain wrong’. (Or ‘Fred’.) And our ‘knee-jerk’ reaction was to go and stop them……..by seriously kicking their asses.”

Actually, our knee-jerk reaction was to bury our heads, or ignore it, or appease them. We didn’t go after Hitler for killing off Jews, we went after Hitler for bombing England, invading and conquering France and Poland and the like, and being partners with Japan, who declared war on us. We didn’t go after Stalin at all. We didn’t go after Mao either. We had many differences against them politically and economically, and engaged through surrogates (Korea, Viet-Nam), but never* engaged either militarily directly.

*There were perhaps a few skirmishes that didn’t escalate to full blown military conflict.

It’s going to be a hard sell to convince climate change skeptics that Katrina was caused by global warming. The best you can justify is that the storm intensity was stronger because of it. Even that, though, is a difficult assertion to back up. And then you have to look at the deaths. The problems in New Orleans were not primarily due to the strength of the storm, but rather the bad decisions and infrastructure of a city that is mostly below sea level, nevermind below the storm surge line. The dike system failed not because the storm was stronger by global warming, but simply because it was old and not designed to take loads above category 3. And the local and state governments were aware of that, but failed to take actions to change that condition. They were provided information about the status of the dikes and the likely scenario if a large hurricane (cat 4 or 5) hit the city head on. They were warned and did not implement remedial actions or a plan to address the weaknesses.

I don’t say there weren’t deaths from Katrina beyond New Orleans, but it is very difficult to come up with any concrete number or even reasonable estimate that can be solidly attributed to global warming. Global warming may have played a role in storm intensity, which ultimately caused damage and deaths, but the link is tenuous and the numbers unassignable.

>Only real international sanctions and diplomatic if not military action against Israel will it seems compel it to do what it should by law have done in 1967 - get the hell out of lands it wrongfully invaded and occupied.

Lands it wrongfully invaded? You know, I recall the situation a little bit differently. I recall that Egypt and Syria both tried to invade and annihilate Israel in that conflict, and the occupation of the territory was a direct result of Israel defending itself. Seems to me if countries don’t want Israel to grow, they should stop attacking it.

>1) Veto powers need to go. 2/3rds majorityvote should rule. One nation, one vote & no tampering. All humans are equal at law - & all nations too.

This would be great in an ideal world. In the real world, we have nations run by hereditary dictators who oppress their own people. I can really see giving them equal authority to vote our policies.

>2) The UN needs to be seen and accepted as the _sole_ agency allowed to use or threaten force to protect other nations -and armed according with all nations contributing to a global army acting for all the world’s people. All nations need to adopt Japan’s pacifist “No Invading Anyone else” clause in their constituitions - & behave accordingly.

Japan’s “no invading others” clause was forced on them by the U.S. But it would be nice if everyone would sign up to that. The only problem is I can see legitimage justification for invading others as part of protecting yourself. I’m not saying that applies to the U.S. in Iraq, but I’m willing to think it applied to the U.S. in Afghanistan. Same thing with the Allies against Germany in WWII. After chasing the Germans out of France and much of Poland, it would not have made much sense to stop and defend the borders where they were before the conflict began.

>3) UN Representatives need to be more powerful, more effective, more intelligent and have their role over-ride that of national leaders whether Kings, Dictators, PMs or Presidents.

I’m not resistant to the idea of globalization and forming a true world government. But sovereignty issues are important, as well as protection. I could easily see the poor countries outvoting the Western industrial countries and implement an “Energy Use” tax targeted at U.S. consumption. I also have some sympathies for fears of an International Court with the power to charge U.S. soldiers and politicians. I think it could be a good thing in some ways, but fear an abuse of power could be very detrimental. I would want to see some sort of strong protections put in that I currently cannot define.

JustAl said:
>Um, your evidence for this? Because I don’t get Ahkbed Ishalamar’s Crusades on my television here, but I get Billy Graham’s. Curious to see where you’re getting yours from.

It’s a bit interpretational in both cases. I don’t think imposing their religion on us is the primary motivation for the terrorist acts. Yes, it is a primary motivation for a lot of other crap, but the goal of the terrorism is something else. But that does not mean that many Muslims wish to see the world made over in the image of Islam. They disagree with our western culture because it conflicts with Islamic doctrine. They fear the intrusion of Western culture into their Islamic countries and the “corruption” of their people to the “sinful” ways. They are very much like conservative christians in that, wanting to make legal restrictions against anyone to conform to their strict religious rules. The fact that the rest of the world has a different set of values and different moral code is irrelevant, they think theirs is correct and think everyone should conform to it. The amount of effort put into forcing others to conform differs by degree of fundamentalism, but ultimately everyone wants everyone else to conform to their own personal moral code.

Yes, that means liberals, too. The difference is in the degree of allowing other people to make decisions for their lives that are different than the decisions you make for your own life.

Mike said:
>Let’s not forget that we’re talking about people whose logic dictates that they beat a woman if she is raped……or if her hair is uncovered…..or if she bares her wrist…..or if she is in the presence of a man who is not related to her…..or if….

This is not “insanity”, it is a difference of values and beliefs. Just because you don’t agree with the values and beliefs does not make them insane. Then again, we probably need a working definition of “insane”.

>Forget the term insanity. Let’s call it ‘crazy’ or ‘nutty’ or ‘sick’. Heck, let’s call it ‘Fred’. This is exactly the point (the one I made earlier about quibbling over a name) I made in my other post: Regardless of the name, the act is wrong and should be stopped. The terminology is not the problem. The problem is the act. (…of terrorism…)

But the terminology is important, because it frames the way we evaluate the issues and the actions. It determines the competence and health of the parties involved. The “legal insanity” defense may be overused and inappropriately claimed by legal strategy, but the concept has a valid purpose.

It goes back to my earlier comment about responsibility for actions. Calling the terrorists insane is an easy way to dismiss their motivations and jump to the conclusion of “kill them all”. But all that does is weaken your own moral position and create more people who are motivated to kill us back. Understanding legitimate political, social, and economic gripes does not justify their horrendous acts or get them off the hook. It does, though, help us understand why they take those actions, and helps us find solutions to eliminate future acts. And it asks us to scrutinize our own actions and responsibility rather than pointing the finger solely on the other person.

For example, looking and Central and South American “freedom fighters” and screaming about how they kill indiscriminately and kidnap our corporate representatives for ransom overlooks the fact that maybe we bear responsibility for propping up a brutal dictator and his death squads in the name of preventing the spread of Communism. It’s definitely hard to be morally more righteous
(we’re better than those murdering cretins) when we’re directly responsible for another set of murdering cretins, the ones that motivate them to take action in the first place.

>And who cares what they’re after. If they want us dead…..or if they want us to bend to their will, then what difference does it make WHAT they’re after? I would hazard a guess that they just want us to do a lot of stuff that we really don’t want to do. Like…..cover our women from head-to-toe….pray 5 times a day to a god we don’t believe in….strap bombs to our children and have them run into crowds….

What if all they want us to do is stay out of the Middle East and let them live by Islamic law in their country? Stop propping up a strict monarchy that maintains a strong class division? Coming into their country for economic reasons (i.e. oil) but bringing along and imposing our culture on them? The reasonableness of their requests/demands cannot be evaluated by ignoring them.